FindLaw

mousekitty
When I was in college, especially working on my Associates degree, I used FindLaw quite often in order to quickly and easily locate a specific case. Since most of the cases listed on FindLaw are in a standard format, I was wondering if there might be some support in the works to have FindLaw court case pages entered more easily into Zotero.

I understand that many legal researchers have access to more advanced legal resources (like Lexis-Nexis and WestLaw), but others (like undergraduate students at community colleges) often don't have access to those sort of databases. Or, if they do have such access, it is limited to the computers in the campus library, a place where the student most likely wouldn't be allowed to use Zotero. (Even at the four year university I attended later on, I could only access the WestLaw database from on campus, sadly.)

In any case, it would be convenient for some if it was possible to make an entry easier from FindLaw.

Thanks!
-MK
  • thoms
    I'll second this. I have access to Lexis, but FindLaw is great for quickly grabbing a case (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/). I remember hearing at some point that Thomson puts these materials freely online to avoid running into any liabilities as far as protecting uncopyrighted government resources -- so it's sort of a good public resource.

    I'm not a coder, but if there would be some way to grab at least the case name and citation (which is available in the URL and is listed on the page) for Supreme Court cases, it would be a great start.

    Cheers,
    -john
  • bill
    Unfortunately, many of the cases I'm seeing on FindLaw are PDFs. The javascript "screen scrapers" that Zotero relies on can't extract text from PDF files, only HTML.

    I do see that the Supreme Court cases that John mentions are HTML. However, I had pretty good luck last year writing a translator for Supreme Court cases at Cornell's LII collection since they display the case in HTML format and include some very nice metadata in the source.

    screenshot: http://mckinney.sw.googlepages.com/zotero-lii.png

    --bill
  • thoms
    Bill,
    It's good to see that you're able to get good data out somewhere. In my perspective, since the content is the same for cases/statutes/etc, it makes sense to use and document whatever sites works best (for now).

    Is the Cornell translator a part of the project?

    Great work!
  • bill
    John,

    I submitted my LII translator to Zotero last October and got this reply:

    "We are very impressed with your quick work putting together a translator. Since it requires changes to our item types, it will take some time to roll in, since we are making other changes to our item types right now."

    In the meantime, I created a portable Firefox+Zotero that includes my translators and runs off a USB thumb drive. It is configured not to update Zotero since it will break my translators and item types. I currently have translators for Supreme Court decisions via LII, the USPTO and the CFR. I have my own particular vision of what metadata I want to capture and how I want to create bluebook compatible citations. So, it is unlikely that my translators will be adopted by the project.

    If you are interested, I'll try to find some time to package the portable version I made.

    --bill
  • thoms
    Thanks for the offer, Bill. At this point, I guess I'd rather wait it out until the devs figure out just how they're going to handle the legal item types.
    Keep up the good work,
    -john
  • grieth
    bill,
    I am in aust, and we have austlii.edu.au for all our legal stuff - it has literally everythin since the 1980's. We really need translator. By the way - the case type on the Zotero beta has very little that we would use for a reference (although your one has more than most people need). Is the case type what the US lawyers would really collect for a ref? If Zotero stays with this case type it will not be nearly as useful in Aust - Is there anything that can be done about this?

    I would love to see your translators. whilst I am not a coder, I may be able to simplify and adapt them to Asutlii (for me at least, if not others).

    grieth
  • bill
    Hi Grieth,

    Your best bet would be to try to fit what you need into Zotero's generic case type. Getting buy-in for a new or modified type (eg: "Case (Australia)") could be tricky. That's why I created my own separate/portable version with custom types for personal use. My main goal was to create fields that would allow me to create a U.S. "Bluebook" citation.

    I'd be happy to help you get started. Maybe you could point me to an example link on the site you mentioned and show me what the citation should look like. I could take a first pass at a translator and send you the code? Take a look at my lii scraper if that helps: http://mckinney.sw.googlepages.com/zotero-scraper-lii-sql.txt

    --bill
  • grieth
    bill,

    That would be great.

    The site is www.austlii.edu.au. It has almost all Aust cases. The main ones I use are High Court, Federal and Family Courts, and Federal Magistrates Court. Some examples

    Full Federal Court
    eg Shi v Migration Agents Registration Authority [2007] FCAFC 59 at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2007/59.html

    Federal Court
    eg SZJFI v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship [2007] FCA 632 at
    http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2007/632.html

    Family Court
    eg Saville & Saville [2007] FamCA 349 at
    http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/family_ct/2007/349.html

    The Federal Magistrates ones may be easiest as they seem to be more structured in formatting. eg MZXCN v Minister for Immigration & Anor [2007] FMCA 573 at
    http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FMCA/2007/573.html

    --grieth
  • bill
    Grieth,

    I've posted a translator for you in a new AustLII discussion (seemed wrong to post it in a "FindLaw" discussion).

    see: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/800/australasian-legal-information-institute/#Item_1

    --bill
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